by Helen Black
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ he says. ‘Too dangerous.’ His unseeing eyes fill with water. ‘I told ’em I didn’t know anything about no bombing,’ he hisses. ‘I told ’em I didn’t know where you were.’
Still gripping my arm, he tries to lift himself towards me, but can only manage to raise his head an inch or so from the pillow.
‘I won’t give you up, Ronnie. I’d rather die.’
His chest begins to convulse and he is wracked by a coughing fit. Struggling to catch his breath, he lets himself flop back and releases my arm.
‘Remember the orchard, Ronnie? You changed my life – no, you saved it. Now it’s my turn to do the same.’
His chest heaves and his throat rattles, and a single tear runs down his cheekbone. Then the alarm on the monitor sounds and the doors crash open.
Chapter Six
Isaac is sweating like a mule as he shuts the door behind him. The girls look up at him, their eyes as wide and their skin as white as a full moon. Mama is still hunched over the book. ‘It’s the police,’ he says.
‘What do they want?’ Rebecca hisses.
Isaac shrugs. ‘Didn’t say.’
Mama pushes back her chair and stands. She wipes her hands down her apron.
‘They’ve come for us as we always knew they would.’
Isaac shakes his head. Mama has been expecting the Forces of Darkness for a long time. ‘I don’t think they mean no harm, Mama.’
A strand of hair has fallen from her plait and she pushes it back with a shaking finger. ‘And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.’
Isaac shakes his head again.
‘Are you sayin’ you know better than the prophesies, Isaac?’ she asks.
‘No ma’am, I ain’t.’
They hold each other’s eyes for a long while, Isaac wishing Daddy were here. He’d kiss Mama’s head and tell her to hush. Then he’d go on outside and shoo those strangers off the land like a couple of noisy possums. Isaac glances up at the clock above the range. Daddy ain’t likely to be back for more than an hour.
‘I just don’t reckon it’s time is all.’
Mama pauses, her eyes flitting between her boy and the good book. Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘And I stood up upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up.’
Isaac takes a step towards her. ‘I know, Mama. I just don’t think now’s the time.’
Mama blinks, torn in two. Isaac takes another step towards her.
‘So if they ain’t come for us, what are they doing here?’ asks Rebecca.
Isaac could kill her dead. He turns towards her and glares.
‘What?’ she says, tears tumbling down her cheeks.
Can’t she see that he needs to calm Mama down? That he was doing it, too, before she stuck her stupid nose in? He’s trying to convey this to her silently when a voice comes from outside.
‘Mrs Pearson?’
Mama jumps at the sound of her name.
It’s the policeman calling. The fat one.
‘Mrs Pearson,’ he shouts again. ‘We’d like to talk to you for a moment.’
Rebecca runs across the room and throws her arms around Mama’s waist. ‘Don’t do it, Mama. Don’t go out there. He wants to make war with us, like you said, I know he does.’ She buries her face in the folds of Mama’s apron, sobbing.
‘There ain’t nothing to be afraid of, Mrs Pearson,’ the policeman shouts.
Mama automatically straightens her spine and calls back, ‘I ain’t afraid of you or your master.’
‘Mrs Pearson.’
It’s the other one now, the one that smells of beer, the one Isaac didn’t like.
‘We need you to open your door now.’ There’s something in his voice that makes it clear he isn’t asking. He’s telling.
‘I have to warn you that if you don’t open up and come talk to us voluntarily we’ll have no alternative but to come in.’
Mama nods as if the matter is at an end and takes Rebecca’s shoulders in her hands, pushing her away to arm’s length. ‘Dry those tears, missy.’
Rebecca lets out a sniff and wipes her nose with her sleeve.
‘We always knew this day would come, right?’ Mama smiles. She looks at Veronica-Mae, then Isaac. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ Isaac mumbles.
Sure, he’s a good Christian boy and reads his verses each evening after supper. He knows that the Devil is abroad and that one day the righteous will be called upon to fight. But he’s always imagined a battle between two huge armies, like the civil war or something. Maybe when he’s twenty-five, or even thirty, and his life is pretty much over, he won’t rightly mind being drafted to take up arms against the Beast. But like this? In his own yard? With Daddy and Noah away from the farm?
‘Come now, children.’ Mama approaches them each in turn and kisses their foreheads. ‘Today we are the soldiers of the one true God and his only son, Jesus Christ.’
Clem didn’t speak as he frogmarched Connolly out of St Barts. What the hell had the stupid idiot been thinking? She worked for the government, for God’s sake. And she was high profile now, whether she liked it or not. She couldn’t get caught impersonating a doctor.
When they reached his car, Clem released his hold and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Do you want to tell me what you were doing?’
‘I needed to speak to you,’ Connolly replied.
And sneaking into a police-guarded hospital wing seemed like the logical solution, did it? ‘Surely it could have waited?’ asked Clem.
Connolly shook her head. ‘You were stalling, not telling me the full story.’
Clem sighed. This girl was supposed to be the hero of the hour. Saviour of the Olympic Games. How the hell did she intend to do that from a cell in Holloway?
‘I may not be an experienced old hand,’ said Connolly, ‘but I know bullshit when I hear it.’
‘You came this close to being arrested.’ Clem held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
‘Yes,’ said Connolly. ‘Thank you for getting me out of there.’
Clem was still furious, but there were more pressing things to discuss. He unlocked his car with the remote and it let out a petulant beep. ‘Get in.’
Once inside, they both kept their eyes straight ahead.
‘The man in the hospital room,’ said Connolly. ‘Is he dead?’
Clem nodded. A bullet passing through skin and bone would tend to do that to a person. ‘Did he say anything?’ he asked.
‘He said he had nothing to do with the bomb,’ Connolly replied.
‘In the infamous words of Mandy Rice-Davies, well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ Clem used enough sarcasm to shame Simon Cowell.
Connolly swivelled in her seat so that she was looking at Clem’s profile. ‘I thought terrorists were supposed to claim their successes, make sure everyone knows what their cause is all about.’
It was a fair point and one that had been niggling Clem. ‘What else did he say?’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing very coherent, he just kept going on about someone called Ronnie.’
Clem kept his eyes fixed towards the windscreen. ‘What about Ronnie?’
‘I don’t really know. Just that he’d never give him up.’
‘Did he say anything about where Ronnie might be?’
‘Nothing,’ said Connolly. ‘Like I say, he wasn’t really with it.’
A moment of silence lapsed while Clem tried to process the facts. He had never really believed that Shining Light were the culprits and having seen the cell and its set-up, he remained unconvinced. The boy, Miggs, was just some no-hoper from the schemes. No way did he have the know-how for something like the Plaza bombing.
But what about the mysterious Ronnie? Nothing had ever been proved but there were suspicions that Ronnie was into some serious shit. Someone who would have all the necessary contacts. And Miggs’s face had changed at the mere mention of Ronnie’s name. He was clearly not someone to be
messed with.
‘So do you think this Ronnie person is behind it?’ Connolly’s voice broke the quiet.
‘It’s looking possible,’ Clem answered.
‘Some people might say that’s a little bit neat.’
‘Then some people would be stupid.’
‘Why’s that?’
Clem turned so that he was finally looking at Connolly. ‘Because it overlooks the small detail that Ronnie is still out there.’
Back at home, I watch dawn break over London; weak, pink sunlight unfurling over the rooftops as I take small sips from a can of Diet Coke.
I had been bloody daft to do what I did. I’d been caught up in the moment, not thinking straight. Now I had a growl of nausea in my stomach from the aftermath of exhaustion and realisation.
Clem had been furious but, fortunately, clearheaded enough to get me out of the hospital. When the alarm had sounded, I was frozen, faced with a clear picture of what I had got myself into. Then the room flooded with nurses and doctors and policemen all barking instructions and talking over one another, until the sister who had granted me access in the first place bellowed at the top of her voice: ‘Clear the room. Medics only.’
Clem had grasped his opportunity to get the hell out with me in tow, leaving her to rip open the patient’s gown and attach two electric paddles to his scraggy chest. The noise of the current passing through him, throwing his body skywards, had been sickening. I shudder and try to chase the sound from my mind.
But you know how it is when you don’t want to think about something. I can almost feel his grip around my arm as he looked into my face, convinced I was his friend. I rub the skin instinctively as his voice rips through me.
‘I won’t give you up, Ronnie. I’d rather die.’
My stomach lurches so I head into the kitchen in search of food and distraction.
Until a couple of days ago I led a safe and secure life – mollycoddled the old man would call it. He compares my childhood to his and says I’ve had it easy. Funny how he never considers what it was like when I got injured and my dreams collapsed. Or how I felt about what happened to Davey. That’s all swept under the carpet like stale biscuit crumbs.
He says I don’t take risks, and he’s right. He says I can’t make decisions, and he’s right. Yet he never asks himself why. Last Christmas I brought him back to my place, cooked a turkey and all the trimmings. Well, I bought it from Marks and Sparks and heated it up. I even put up a tree, for God’s sake. We hadn’t even pulled a cracker when he started.
‘You know your trouble, Jo.’ He waggled a gravy-smeared knife at me. ‘You avoid unpleasantness.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ I laughed.
‘Only the weak,’ he told me. ‘The strong know that to get where they want to be, they have to face the rough as well as the smooth.’
Well, I can safely say I’ve done that now. In the last forty-eight hours I’ve witnessed more death and despair than most people see in a lifetime. Including the old man. I almost wish I could go back to my old existence. Almost. The truth is, though, despite everything, I’ve never felt more alive.
I grab a slice of wholemeal from the bread bin, tear it in two and swallow the first half. It hits my digestive tract like a school bully’s thump, but I force down the other half behind it.
For a long time now, I’ve been running away from life. No more. Whoever Ronnie is, wherever he might be, he is dangerous. He has to be caught. The only man who might help with that is dead and I was the last person to see him alive.
I take another bite of bread and search for a pen. Then I carefully begin to write down everything the dead man said to me.
‘He’s dead?’ The PM looked over his desk at Clem.
‘Cardiac arrest at 4.29 this morning,’ Clem confirmed.
Benning floated behind the PM like a spectre. ‘Not necessarily a bad thing,’ he said. ‘The dead don’t talk.’
The PM sighed and picked up a plastic bottle of water bearing the Olympic flag motif. ‘Did he tell you anything before he died?’
‘Nothing useful,’ Clem replied.
‘No confession?’ Benning asked.
Inwardly, Clem smiled. Wouldn’t that have been handy? Everything wrapped up like a present. Sorry, boys, not today. ‘He died before I could administer a proper interrogation.’
Benning shrugged. ‘No matter. With all members of the cell eliminated . . .’
Clem bridled. They were talking about people’s lives, and not just those who had died. Killing a man, any man, left a mark. A suit like Benning couldn’t even begin to imagine what it felt like to watch the light go out in somebody’s eyes.
‘It’s not quite as easy as that, Mr Benning. There’s one member still at large,’ he said.
He saw the disappointment in Benning’s face and couldn’t resist adding, ‘Possibly the most dangerous of the gang.’
‘So apprehend him,’ Benning declared.
The PM held up his palms. ‘I’m sure Clem is doing all he can.’
Benning barely contained a snort.
‘In the meantime, when we issue a press release confirming the death of this suspect do we need to mention the fourth outstanding member?’ asked the PM.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Benning. ‘It would cause panic. The Games would never survive.’
The PM tapped his bottle nervously. ‘Is that sufficient justification to withhold this information?’
Benning licked his lips as he considered the question, then directed his gaze at Clem. ‘If alerted that we’re on to him, might the fugitive go to ground permanently?’ he asked.
‘Ronnie X is already underground,’ Clem answered.
‘So forcing him deeper still might make him impossible to catch?’
‘Very possibly.’
‘Then I would say it’s a matter of national security that we keep the existence of the fourth member top secret,’ said Benning.
Clem almost whistled at the mental gymnastics when his phone vibrated in his hand. He never turned it off, not even during meetings at Downing Street. He scanned the number. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I think I need to take this call.’ He ignored the glare from Benning and turned his body for a semblance of privacy.
‘Christian Clement.’
‘It’s Jo Connolly here.’
‘I know.’
‘Can you talk right now?’
Clem glanced at the PM. ‘Tricky.’
‘Right,’ said Connolly. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I remembered something else that the dead man said to me. It might be nothing; it might not.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m on my way to the basketball arena. Photo op with Team GB.’
Clem glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll meet you there in one hour.’ He hung up. Turned back to the PM. Didn’t apologise.
‘It’s decided, then, that for the time being we will not mention the fourth suspect,’ said the PM.
Clem nodded. Of course it was decided.
The PM picked up the remote control and flicked on the television. The Olympic flag fluttered in the breeze above the basketball stadium. ‘Are we sure that no one outside these walls knows this information?’ he asked.
Clem didn’t miss a beat. ‘No one.’
Benning narrowed his eyes. ‘Let’s make sure it stays that way.’
I smile for the cameras in my tracksuit and trainers, basketball in hand. Number Ten sent an advance party including a make-up girl who dabbed concealer over my cuts and bruises. A day ago Benning and the PM couldn’t wait to show them off as proof of my heroism. Today we’re putting all reminders of any nasty business aside. Another reason why I could never have made a politician: I’d never have been able to keep up.
I try to spin the ball on my finger, dropping it, causing the team to laugh.
‘Have a shot, Miss Connolly,’ one of the players says.
‘Call me Jo.’
‘Okay, Jo.’ He winks at me. ‘Take a shot.’
I spot Clem, high in the stadium and make my way towards him, taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time.
‘You’re fit,’ he says.
‘Not compared to that lot.’ I gesture to the athletes training below us, but I smile because he’s right. I feel great. My body is still stiff and sore but I feel energised and happy.
‘You have something to tell me,’ he says.
I nod and pull out a sheet of paper from my pocket. ‘I’ve jotted down everything I can remember Miggs saying to me. There wasn’t much, but I’ve tried to remember it word for word.’
Clem takes it from me, scanning my messy writing.
‘I think this bit is probably the most interesting.’ I tap a sentence I’ve underlined twice:
Remember the orchard, Ronnie?
If Clem is impressed he doesn’t show it. He remains straight faced as he folds the paper in half, then in quarters and slides it into his inside pocket.
‘I think I might know what it means,’ I say.
Clem raises an eyebrow.
‘Miggs was Scottish, right? Glaswegian I’d say.’
Clem doesn’t answer, so I assume I’m right.
‘So I googled orchards in Glasgow.’
‘And?’
‘There are a few; apples mostly, some pears.’
Clem runs a tongue over his teeth. ‘Is this going anywhere?’
‘I didn’t think so, until I spotted an entry for a parish council newsletter. You know the sort of thing: neighbourhood watch, applications for an extended bar licence for the St Mary’s Catholic Mothers’ pie and pea supper.’
Clem sighs.
‘Then I noticed an entry for a planning application. The local authority wants to change the use of one of their buildings. It’s currently housing a debt advisory service but they want to swap it over to a residential unit for young people with drug issues.’
‘I’m sure the St Mary’s Catholic Mothers are overjoyed about that,’ says Clem.
‘Not exactly,’ I say. ‘But therein lies the rub. Until five years ago it was a residential unit. Not for drug addicts, but for teenagers in care.’
Clem doesn’t respond, which I take to be a good sign.